Conventional clothes hampers are usually made of a plastic, metallic or cloth/woven material and include a base container and a cover which is either hingedly attached to the container or removably positioned thereon. One problem with such devices is that quite often sharp edges or crevices are exposed, for example, the area at which the cover is pivoted to the container, and clothes are susceptible to being snagged, particularly as they are being put into or removed from the hamper.
Moreover, such hampers are usually not very stable. Many users have a tendency to utilize such hampers as a table to temporarily store items, and most hampers are not designed for such use and could warp or fail when exposed to such forces. In addition, such abuse often causes the four side walls of the base container to be temporarily flexed to a parallelogram shape which, at a minimum, could cause a hinged lid to be displaced from the container or fit poorly.
Another potentially irritating aspect of prior clothes hampers is the visual presence of vent holes. It is desirable for hampers to have such holes to prevent the build-up of offensive odors as, for example, may be emitted by dirty, wet clothing. Some manufacturers attempt to blend such holes in with the external aesthetics of the hamper, while others merely obtrusively position the holes, for example, on the sides of the hamper without regard to the resulting offensive appearance.
The present invention addresses these problems and deficiencies in the prior art by providing a sturdy, snag-proof, all plastic hamper in which the vent holes are present but undetectable by the user during normal use.